Page 9 of Love Unraveled
She was more than irritated. The fire of fury flashed amber in her eyes. It was an anger he understood well. To believe someone you trusted, someone you loved, had abandoned you? It was the worst feeling, a dark pit with no light. There were times he’d wished she’d been taken from him rather than have given herself away, so freely, with no thought of him.
“Shall I speak? Tell you the tale, or would you prefer to tell me?” Gaston’s anger sparked too easily, but it was painful to look at her and know she’d chosen another.
Sophie looked as though she was going to say something further but changed her mind. She kicked off her slippers and tucked her stockinged feet under her derriere. It would have been sensual, her limbs outlined as she’d shifted, if it weren’t so infuriating. Sophie angry withhim. The gall.
She pressed her lips together, and his anger drained away. He wanted to forget everything. To slide onto the sofa beside her and taste her once again. To push aside the years and start anew.
“Well?” she prompted, tilting her head to one side.
“I went to the harbor to ensure the boat would be ready for us,” he continued, ignoring all foolish longing for things to be different. He’d used to be a dreamer, but he was a realist now. “I watched it sink.La Nymphe. It was gutted and sank along with others. It was our way out, and it was gone. I did not know what to do.”
“You could have come back to me.”
“And what would you do with me? Hide me? Even if you managed to keep me from the soldiers, how could you keep my presence from your aunt? And she hated the French. She would have reported me.”
“But she hated all French equally,” Sophie said. “Why would she turn you over to French soldiers? She owed them nothing.”
“Because she hated your father most of all. And I was there to do exactly what your father had done years ago with your mother. Take you away.”
He could see Sophie’s mind turning it over, but she made no comment.
“I did the only thing I could do with soldiers swarming all aroundVenise. I went to see Count Tessaro again. He had no alternative plan for us but promised to devise one. He would not house me while he hatched it. He gave me the address of a man friendly toles Bourbonsand told me to return after dark. I never made it to the safe house.”
Sophie leaned forward. “What happened?” she whispered, her brow now furrowed in concern.
“I don’t know. I had slipped out of the count’s house and was headed along a narrow lane, and that’s the last I remember. I awoke a day, or maybe two, later, a prisoneren routeto Paris.” Gaston took a long sip of his cognac, letting Sophie digest his story.
“You truly have no idea…?” she finally asked.
“For certain?Non. But the count was agitated I’d come. He was reluctant to help. He’d managed to keep himself out of the foray for years, and he made it clear he had no wish to become embroiled in it. It might be a coincidence; it might not.”
Sophie quickly unfolded from the sofa and sat board straight, her eyes widening in disbelief. “Are you insinuating Carmine had something to do with it?”
Carmine.Merde! Gaston wished the count were still alive so he could slay the man for stealing his life. He swallowed hard, forcing his anger back into the pit where it dwelled. He scanned Sophie’s body from head to toe before meeting her eyes and holding her stare.
He swallowed the bile souring his throat and shrugged a shoulder. “He benefited greatly from it, did he not?”
Chapter Six
The passion of love is to be conquered only by flying from it.
—Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote
Sophia refused toaccept what Gaston was suggesting. Not that he’d been taken away from her against his will, for she did not think he would lie about such a thing, but that Carmine had anything to do with it. It could not be.
“Impossibile! He was heartbroken for me.”
“I bet he was,” Gaston said dryly, easing back in his chair, his cognac once again dangling casually from one hand.
Sì, he could relax now that he’d stirred her blood. Who was this man who looked so much like Gaston but oozed with such bitterness? She, too, had lost everything, but she did not see villains where there were none.
“I do not accept it. You did not know him like I did. Carmine was distraught I had been abandoned.” Although, Carmine never mentioned Gaston had come to him. Doubt wiggled in, and she pushed it away. She’d been married to Carmine for four years, and he’d been nothing but kind. He would not have deliberately hurt her in such a way.
Gaston’s expression did not change. “Why don’t you ask Raimondo? He can confirm I came to the count for help. He knows what happened.”
Sophia did not hesitate. She was never one to shy away from a truth. She strode to the wall and pulled the bell cord. Soon there was a light tap at the door. Harris knew better than to walk into any room without a direct invitation, bell or no bell.
She pulled open the door, startling Harris for the second time. “Find Raimondo.” Movement drew her eye, and she spotted him lingering by the stairwell. She should have known he would not be far away. “Raimondo,vieni qui.”
